Last week Annabelle started to fully crawl, and a few days after that, she started pulling herself up on our couch and is walking along it as she holds onto it. Her motive? I’m pretty sure it’s not Toby, and is my laptop. She loves to bang her little hands on the keys and she looks so proud of herself as she mimics her mom and dad.

So, here’s a little story about Annabelle the crawling baby.

Yesterday I brought her to the Ashburn library for a workshop on infant massage. At almost nine months old, Annabelle was an old lady among seven week old to three month old babies. Still, I thought, why not give the workshop a chance?

First we removed the baby’s onesies. Then we lay them on their backs and said, “Do you want a massage?” I should have known right from this moment that infant massage was not going to be Annabelle’s forte. She answered me in her monster voice, a scratchy tone that she uses when she wants to be heard. To my surprise, the baby next to us (who was also nine months old), reached out for Annabelle’s hand and started talking to her with a similar monster voice. The woman leading the workshop began instructing us all to make heart shapes on our baby’s chests. Annabelle gave me a dirty look as I rubbed oil into my hands and made three heart shaped strokes over her chest. “It clears their lungs,” said the instructor. Annabelle just glared at me and slapped my hands away.

I decided to bring out my keys. My keys always work in making a fussy Annabelle a little bit happier. I think she considers Mom’s keys a forbidden toy. Anway, I hand her the keys. She sits up. I attempt to rub her shoulders and stroke her under her arms. She ignores me and continues to chew on the keys.

Then she notices the paper instructions that another mom had propped up beside us. Annabelle decides to crawl over, grab the instructions, and starts to eat them. I apologized to the other mom, returned the instructions to her, and laid Annabelle back down to try and continue with the massage.

Annabelle then crawled back over towards the other mom and her baby and started to poke her fingers in the baby’s face. At this point, my optimism for infant massage was deflated. The other parents made comments like, “She’s an active one, isn’t she?” I nodded and laughed, but could tell that my sweet little baby and I were not cut out for infant massage.

In any case, if anyone wants some infant massage oil, let me know. I don’t think we’ll be using ours.

Move over Jimi Hendrix, here comes guitar strummin Annabelle! This past Monday at Jammin’ Java’s Annabelle approached Oh Susannah and played some tunes on her guitar. Not only did I get a kick out of watching her little baby fingers move over the strings, but the other parents and Oh Susannah seemed pretty impressed by how much Annabelle enjoyed herself.

This past week, Mom and I visited our friends Sara, Zach, and Avery so that the boys could take turns at their swim lessons. Mom played motor boat with the boys and I learned to take long naps in my stroller–boy was it hot out! I liked playing with Avery and Zach, who are both fun and terrific swimmers.

Happy 1st Father’s Day Dad! I’m not sure about you, but I had a great time hanging out with you this whole weekend. Just so you know, I made sure that Mom bought you a cool gift, like Led Zepplin’s greatest hits. Gotta stay hip and cool even though becoming parents is making you and Mom a bit boring. Another good part about Father’s Day are getting to wear the gift wrap. Here I am sporting a polka dotted bow for my first dance to Led Zepplin. Now, I’m not only cute, but hip too.

Our baby loves to swim! At our last baby reading group (I know, I know, how much reading can we do in a pool? Well, we had water proof books and we played and sang water themed activities), Annabelle revealed how much she loves to swim. Another mom instructed the rest of us to put our babies on their bellies and to let them try to kick and move their arms. Well, I didn’t expect too much, but Annabelle surprised us all but passionately kicking and paddling. She didn’t even care about all the water that was splashing up into her face (thank goodness we were in a low chlorinated pool). All the other moms were laughing and telling their babies to take Annabelle’s cue. It was so cute, and I have to say, I was so proud of my little girl.

Yesterday, for Father’s Day, we stopped by the pool after a long day outside in the sun. If you didn’t know, Matt is totally whipped by his little girl, so when we showed him that she loves the water (just like he does), I think I saw him get a bit teary eyed through his laughter. I wish we had a photo of her face as she pushes herself through the water. She is just so taken by it.

She looks so sweet and smart, too, doesn’t she? What the camera doesn’t show is Annabelle tossing the book and then punting it across the room. So much for mom’s dreams of a baby who likes books, huh? For now we’ll just have to settle for the fact that she enjoys attacking newspapers and chewing on books and paper. Oh, and we checked. Paper, in small amounts–we’re guessing–isn’t too dangerous for baby’s to ingest.